Berger was awesome. He seems like someone who would be a hoot to know in real life. The pranks he used to play on Senna when they were teammates at McLaren were legendary. Best two: He threw Ayrton's briefcase out of a helicopter in mid-flight once, and took Senna's passport and replaced the photo with.... something else.

Pastor crashes in pitlane.... literally, the slowest point of the track, the one area where there's a speed limit.

(I know that's before the pitlane speed limit..... roll with it)

On the Formula1Blog.com podcast last week they were talking about the disparity in penalties between Ricciardo's stop-go plus 10-grid position penalty for an 'unsafe release' that did not impede any driver or result in any adverse outcome to another driver, and Maldonado's 5-grid position penalty and three points on his license for flipping Gutierrez....... Paul Charsley (a regular on the 'cast and professional racing driver instructor at Simraceway in Sonoma) observed that "Anytime Maldonado is allowed out on track it's an unsafe release."

If you like top end speed, its your kind of race. Longest straight in the series.

Also, if you're just getting into F1, the most interesting part of the race is the first and last five laps. F1 is a lot of strategy and the tension in the middle is what really makes it all worth it, but you can't miss Lap 1 Turn 1.

Completely unrelated to anything going on in F1 right now, but I thought I left my Robert Kubica hat in a bar last week. My wife got it for me two years ago and I've only worn it out once or twice, the rest of the time it has been hanging in my study. Was really gutted to lose it. Turns out it fell behind my DVD rack at that house. So dumb but so great at once. Couldn't figure out why someone in a bar in NC would keep a hat with a Polish flag on it instead of just turning it in to lost and found.

Technically speaking, yes - the Shanghai circuit has the longest straight in F1. I read a thing that ranked the five longest straights from the 2012 as: Shanghai, Korea, Abu Dhabi, Monza, India. (Not sure what circuit would replace India since it's not on the schedule this year... I think maybe Barcelona?) But they are all within about 100 m in length from one and other.

However......... by far the longest section of track between braking points is actually Spa. It's well over one mile (more than 2 km) from the exit of La Source, down the hill past the old pits to Eau Rouge, up Radillon and Kemmel before dropping anchor at Les Combes. I think because of the left-right-left bit to get up the hill they don't count it as one contiguous straight. Which is silly, because that bit of track has been 'easy flat' for probably 10-12 years now, and the only slowing the cars do is because of the massive compression at the bottom of the hill.

I miss the days when the cars would be topping out at over 230 mph on the Rettifilio Tribune at Monza.....

Yeah, but China couldn't hold Spas jock. Not many circuits in the world can. Another thing that could be confusing there is the climb up Eau Rouge, not that F1 cars have any kind of problem with it. I was there yesterday in GT6 tooling around in a BMW Z4 GT3 and tried to take the same line I usually take with a forumula car. Car, meet wall.

Anyway, my comment was just to add some interest to the non-F1 initiated. A reason why China might be special. Top speed runs really aren't the magic of F1, it's what they do in the corners that blows your mind.

I love it when drivers ignore team orders - openly telling their team to stuff it - and then still end up 20 seconds behind their team mate.

And, because of the checkered flag error at the beginning of the final lap, by rule the race has been shortened from 56 laps to 54 laps. Why two laps and not one when the flag was shown at the end of lap 55? Because the rule states if the race end signal (checkered flag) is shown early for any reason, the official race distance will be as it was when the leading driver crossed the line on the lap preceding the display of the race end signal. The only finishing position affected by this error is Kamui Kobayashi; he made a late pass on Jules Bianchi for P17, that has been undone. Doesn't seem like much, but these finishing positions mean actual money in the bank for the backmarker teams.

MADRID: Formula One legend Michael Schumacher is being sued for causing a traffic accident in Spain last November.

Schumacher, who is in a coma after suffering head injuries in a skiing accident on December 29 last year at the French resort of Meribel, is facing charges in connection with a collision with a motorcyclist which took place in the town of Bormujos, close to Seville on November 17 last year, reports Xinhua.

Catalunya:Stoic drive by Vettel. For all the flack he catches for not being able to overtake and only going fast from the front, 15th to 4th is exceptional. DR only went 30 seconds faster starting from 3rd. This after Vettel only had 4 laps of total practice through P2. Mercedes drama is fun to watch, but Rosberg fails to do anything with it at the end again. Ferrari. Meh. Kimi/Fred fight was cool, but otherwise their season is circling the drain already.

dodint wrote:Catalunya:Stoic drive by Vettel. For all the flack he catches for not being able to overtake and only going fast from the front, 15th to 4th is exceptional. DR only went 30 seconds faster starting from 3rd. This after Vettel only had 4 laps of total practice through P2. Mercedes drama is fun to watch, but Rosberg fails to do anything with it at the end again. Ferrari. Meh. Kimi/Fred fight was cool, but otherwise their season is circling the drain already.

That was pretty much it in a nutshell. Mercedes inadvertently sabotages Louis and Nico can't even make anything from it.Vettel keeping me alive in my F1 pool, and Ferrari are toast. Hard to believe they're so far off that their looking at Williams' gearbox.

At Indy:Cheever goes on and on about how there's no reason not to do standing starts in Indycar, then they wad up three cars as soon as the lights go off. Hmm, concrete canyon, a car who's horrible anti-stall device is legendary, and I can't think of any North American series that does a standing start. We all knew how that was going to end up. Heck, even JPM killed it.

If there was a Formula One drivers stock exchange, I'd be advising everyone I know to sell every last share in Rosberg. This is the second race of the year that he's had the more favorable tire at the end of the race and he has failed to seal the deal and overtake Hamilton.

Vettel was inspired, and a few of his overtakes into T10 were, frankly, brilliant. I swear he was coming from 2-3 car lengths back on a couple of them..... the last time I saw a driver pass like that was Hamilton in his rookie year, taking Raikkonen into the first chicane at Monza. But whereas Hammie lit up all four corners, Vettel seemed composed and assertive.

And can we please just suspend Maldonado's superlicense already?

dodint wrote:Meanwhile, at Indianapolis:

I don't really follow Indycar that much (if at all) anymore, but I can't be alone in thinking that an "Indianapolis Grand Prix" to kick off May is a right buttfumble idea.

And after watching the video..... who the hell are these guys? Munoz, Saavedra, Aleshin.....??

I think standing starts have a place in Indy, but all road courses should be standing and ovals rolling. This way the drivers get practice in it and know it's coming, and the teams are compelled to develop a car with proper launch control. They did some standing starts last year as well and it was pretty squeamish. In fact, the very first race they were set to do it they had two false starts and did a rolling start anyway.

I've been saying for a while (forever) that the talent pool is shallow in Indy. They guys that come from Firestone Lights stay there for a cup of coffee, and the rest of field is comprised of old F1 and sportscar drivers. Just a weird hodgepodge of talent there. Also, Sato always Satos, so there is that.